Three state football championships grace the Knoxville area this year

Anyone who has been to Knoxville, let alone lived here, concedes that this is a hotbed of football. The UT Volunteer faithful paint the town orange, literally, year-round in their quest to show the Vol color. This season, though, you can see quite a sprinkling of reds, three shades of the color, from burgundy to crimson. Those colors are flying high because the Knoxville area boasts three state championship football teams who share reds.

Knoxville’s Fulton and Blount County’s Maryville and Alcoa high schools all returned from the TSSAA championship games at Murfreesboro on Dec. 5 with the champions’ trophies in their classes.

For the participants, there may be no sports thrill—not the Super Bowl or the World Series, or any of those high-profile professional tournament winners—greater than a state high school championship in any scholastic sport.

The kids, especially, share an incredibly elevating moment. It’s great for their coaches, their schoolmates and families, and the followers of the school’s fortunes. But for the players, nothing is likely to surpass the sheer elation they feel as state champs. They worked for it. They won it. They earned it. Now, they deserve it.

The whole Knoxville area should revel in the victories; they are so unusual when they come to a single community. The schools are barely 20 miles apart, and they are strong academic as well as athletic institutions.

Maryville, one of the top schools in the state, brought home its fifth Class AAAA title in six years, an almost unbelievable run. But, as George Quarles, Maryville’s head coach, said, “It never gets old.” The Rebels beat Melrose High 7-6 in a nail-biter that featured terrific defensive play. The one-point victory punctuated a 15-0 season. Going unbeaten doesn’t get old, either. It will earn a big trophy every time. Defensive tackle Gary Tucker, who blocked the Melrose extra point attempt and recovered a Melrose fumble, was named defensive player of the AAAA game. Maryville quarterback Cade Thompson, a senior, has directed the Rebels to two championships on his way to AAAA Mr. Football honors.

For Fulton, the Class AAA title is the school’s second straight, despite the team having graduated a number of key players from among last year’s champs.

The Falcons beat Greenbrier 34-6, with a crunching ground game and several key defensive stops. Fulton head coach Buck Coatney credited the 2003 championship experience for preparing his players for the pressure of this season’s title game. But Tyrone Cobb, the defensive player of the Class AAA game with a forced fumble, a quarterback sack and eight tackles, missed last year’s championship game when he was suspended from the team.

Alcoa, which has won six previous state championships, whipped Huntingdon 52-41 in a wild offensive struggle that saw the Tornadoes rally from 15 points down to take the Class AA trophy.

Losers only to Maryville, the Tornadoes did the job this year with a team laden with underclassmen, and their 14-1 record speaks for itself. Alcoa head coach John Reid was quoted as saying the hair-raising title struggle was a “wonderful game to watch, but...a horrible game to coach.” In the end, any horror he felt was worth it. Dustin Lindsey, Alcoa’s junior multi-purpose back, scored two rushing touchdowns and added a third on a pass reception to be named offensive player of the Class AA game.

Falcons, Rebels, Tornadoes, you are all to be congratulated again for your performances at Murfreesboro. We know you’ve heard the accolades for days now. But, like state titles, they never get old.

December 16, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 51 © 2004 Metro Pulse